My Chinese teacher was going through the answers for the past-year IB Chinese papers last Friday and as usual, some people in class (occasionally me) were secretly doing their own work. Then she was trying to explain what “地下工作者” meant. In English, it refers to people who seem to be doing something but are actually doing something else. Then she started giving an example of how some people in class seemed to be doing Chinese but were actually doing their own work. And it so happened that Justin (my desk partner) was doing his physics, and we immediately burst into laughter. Then she went on to elaborate, “我知道你们当中有些人在做你们的什么... Physics 啊...". It was unbelievably true and that was what made it kind of funny.

That episode kept us laughing for about 10 minutes non-stop. Partly because laughter is infectious. One stops, the other giggles, and both start laughing again.

Then it worsened when we were going through an article on "拼", and we were trying to come up with 配词 for "拼". So there were words like 拼命 etc. Then someone from the back of the class suddenly said, “pong”. Again, I got into a tiring laughing state.

My jaws were tired and my eyes teared up by the end of Chinese lesson.

This is the power of laughter.